The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

Even if Starbucks’ Ireland Twitter account only has 2,000 followers, it probably should’ve thought a bit harder before asking those followers how it feels to be British. You know, since Ireland’s a free and independent republic that is most definitely not part of the United Kingdom anymore.

First and foremost we apologise to our Irish customers for the mistake made on Twitter this afternoon. The tweet, which was only meant to be sent to our British Twitter followers as part of the diamond jubilee celebrations, was erroneously posted to our Irish Twitter page. We apologise to all our customers and followers on Twitter in Ireland and hope that they will forgive our mistake.

Starbucks isn’t the only big company to rub the Hibernians the wrong way recently. Urban Outfitters pulled a few T-shirts it was selling around St. Patrick’s Day, after complaints that they depicted the Irish in an unflattering light.

Then there was Nike’s “Black and Tan” sneaker, also released near St. Patrick’s Day, which shared a name with both a beverage and, unfortunately, a violent British paramilitary unit blamed for atrocities against Catholics during the Irish war of independence.